A new report has revealed that more than 2000 Irish children living in religious run homes in the 1930s were subjected to drugs trials.
As the Tuam burial ground scandal erupts, it has now emerged that Catholic Church run homes and state institutions let the children of unmarried mothers be used in medical experiments.
The Irish Daily Mail has published a damning report which outlines how scientists secretly vaccinated more than 2,000 children in religious-run homes in suspected illegal drug trials.
The paper says that old medical records show that 2,051 children and babies in Irish care homes were given a one-shot diphtheria vaccine for international drugs giant Burroughs Wellcome between 1930 and 1936.
The report adds that no evidence exists that consent was ever sought.
Historian Michael Dwyer who unearthed the documentations says that no records of how many may have died or suffered debilitating side-effects as a result are in existence.
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, on a trade mission in America, has been made aware of the scandal by the paper and has ordered ministers to see whether there are more mass baby graves scattered across the country.
His move comes after claims that more than 800 infants may be buried in a septic tank outside a former mother and baby home in Tuam.
Children's homes are under the spotlight since it emerged that 796 babies may be buried at the former mother and baby home at Tuam, Co. Galway - Enda Kenny has ordered officials to see if other mass graves exist.
Dwyer, a lecturer at Cork University's School of History, told the Irish Daily Mail that he found the child vaccination data by trawling through tens of thousands of medical journal articles and archive files.
He said the trials were carried out before the vaccine was made available for commercial use in the UK.
Irish homes where children were secretly tested included Bessborough, in Co. Cork and Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, both of which are at the centre of the mass baby graves scandal.
Children at Sean Ross Abbey in Tipperary are thought to have been used in secret drug trials in the 1930s.
Dublin trials may have involved children from St Vincent's Industrial School, Goldenbridge, St Joseph's School for Deaf Boys, Cabra, and St Saviours's Dominican Orphanage.
Dwyer warned: "What I have found is just the tip of a very large and submerged iceberg.
"The fact that no record of these trials can be found in the files relating to the Department of Local Government and Public Health, the Municipal Health Reports relating to Cork and Dublin, or the Wellcome Archives in London, suggests that vaccine trials would not have been acceptable to government, municipal authorities, or the general public.
"However, the fact that reports of these trials were published in the most prestigious medical journals suggests that this type of human experimentation was largely accepted by medical practitioners and facilitated by authorities in charge of children's residential institutions."
A spokesman for GSK -formerly Wellcome - told the Irish Daily Mail: "The activities that have been described to us date back over 70 years and, if true, are clearly very distressing.
"We would need further details to investigate what actually took place, but the practices outlined certainly don't reflect how modern clinical trials are carried out. We conduct our trials to the same high scientific and ethical standards, no matter where in the world they are run."
A spokeswoman for the Sisters of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, the order that ran Bessborough and Sean Ross Abbey, has said that like GSK, they would also welcome an independent inquiry.
Have you read the old testament? When it comes to religion and the horrors that stem from it I choose Odin worship thanks. At least he has a redeeming quality of being the god of poetry.
Our history shows religion and abuses go hand in hand for many different victimised cultures. All three branches of the worship of the god of Abraham are guilt as sin when it comes to this. Perhaps in 1000 years we may cast off this primitive belief system and and grow as a species. Then again I may grow a third arm and learn to whistle the rocky road to dublin from me sphincter.